Judy Eddy/WENN.com/Eugene Powers/WENN.com
Danity Kane Talks Diddy & Sexist/Colorist Comments In The Industry
The ladies of Danity Kane have more to say about their dealings with Diddy while signed to his Bad Boy Records label. The now trio consisting of Dawn Richard, Aubrey O’Day and Shannon Bex previously said that Diddy didn’t really care about their success and was more interested in the “Making The Band” aspect of their formation.
Now they’re giving out more details to Cosmopolitan in a transparent and raw sitdown where they say he made sexist comments about them.
Back when Aubrey O’Day was fired from the group, Cosmo pointed out that what Diddy said to Aubrey had little to do with her business practices and was more anti-feminist with words like “promiscuous” being thrown out.
In an argument with Aubrey on the show, Diddy asked her if she “wanted to look like a Playboy playmate” and added that he “didn’t wanna sign Pamela Anderson.” Later when he officially axed her he said;
“I don’t like her energy, I don’t like her style and direction where she’s going with it, I don’t like what she does to the brand when she’s wilding out there being overly raunchy, promiscuous.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp0YTrAAPeV/
[Photo Credit: Ruben Chamorro for Cosmo]
Sounds a LOT like slut-shaming to us.
In prepping for this interview, I re-watched the episode of Making the Band 4 in which Diddy fires Aubrey and D. Woods from the group, and it just struck me how anti-feminist it was. I mean, he used words like “promiscuous” to explain his reasoning…Richard: It wasn’t about her being “promiscuous.” It was about the power to prove, I own your career.
O’Day: And I’m not promiscuous. I didn’t lose my virginity until my senior year of college.
Richard: It wasn’t even about that. It gave him an excuse. It was to let you know, This is my show, this is my s***, and I want to prove to you that it’s my s*** and I’m going to show you how much power I have over you by saying I’m going to control your lives. It’s so much bigger than that even though, you’re right, it was extremely sexist.
DJDM/WENN.com
It was really uncomfortable to watch.
Shannon Bex: Whenever you had conversations with him, it was almost like you were asking, “Is this OK?” And Aubrey didn’t like to bring the apprehension, so she was like, No! This is what it is. He didn’t like that.
It felt like a reaction to…
O’Day: Being challenged.
And someone having power when you want to be the only one with power and reacting to that.
Dawn then added that she and band member D. Woods would often have Aubrey speak up for them so that they wouldn’t be painted as “angry black women” and later she told Cosmo about a shocking meeting where colorist remarks were made.
Hit the flip to see which industry exec allegedly made disgusting remarks about her looks.
[Photo Credit: Ruben Chamorro for Cosmo]
According to Dawn when she moved on from Danity Kane and formed Diddy-Dirty Money with Puff and Kaleena Harper, Jimmy Iovine asked Puff why he was in a group with dark-skinned girls and added that they were “too ugly” for fame.
Richard: […] Jimmy Iovine told Kalenna [editor’s note: Kalenna Harper was a member of Dirty Money with Richard; the duo performed with Diddy as Diddy-Dirty Money] and I are to our face, he looked at Puff and said, “Why don’t you have two light skinned girls?” In front of a boardroom of fifty people.
[…]
Richard: He said, “These girls are too ugly. I don’t get it. What are you trying to do with this?” I remember feeling exactly how Aubrey felt. You know you’re more than this and you’re sitting there and you’re being told as a grown woman you’re ugly.
Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
Bex: Not even told to you, but told in front of you to other people talking about you.
Richard: And the worst part was my boss then said when we left, “I need y’all to go put on a mini-skirt and we’re gonna straighten your hair” and they brought us back in the room. And he still didn’t get it. No one fought for us, ever. We’ve only had to fight for ourselves. There was no one who was willing to say, “We have your back.”
Kalenna Harper spoke to Cosmo and told them that Diddy never encouraged her to change her look and she had nothing but sweet things to say about Iovine.
“I personally was encouraged from Puff, verbally, to never change what I looked like. There were people that thought Dirty Money was a reach. I heard through the grapevine that Puff was being asked why he didn’t use Cassie, etc. But Puff insisted on the sound matching the look.” She also fondly recalled meeting Iovine prior to joining Diddy Dirty Money, writing, “by this point he was letting me know that I was now one of his favorite writers and favorite voices to listen to.”]
WENN.com
CONVENIENT or nah?
There’s lotssss more to unpack here besides Jimmy I being an alleged colorist comment making curmudgeon, hit the flip.
Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images
Aubrey told Cosmo that none other than Cheeto In Chief complained about her looks while she starred on “Celebrity Apprentice” and flat-out said she was “ugly.”
“O’Day: When I was doing Celebrity Apprentice, I was doing all these old fashioned looks. I have this amazing hairstylist and he would do all of these classic looks on me in the boardroom and I remember maybe the fourth or fifth episode, two producers came over to me and said, “Aubrey, you’re the youngest one we’ve had here. You’re running circles around everyone. Nobody thought you’d do this well, but Trump thinks you’re ugly.
O’Day: “He’s wanting to get rid of you. He wants to keep the dumb Miss Universe around because she’s really pretty and she’s hot and he thinks that we’ll do better. She gets more ratings.” They said, “You are beautiful though and we know that but you’ve got to stop doing like…”
And I’m like, Dude, these looks I’m pulling are classic. All these other b***s are showing up in Forever21 looking budget and I’m over here working with the best people, looking polished. They were like, “I know, but our audience is the NASCAR audience. They don’t understand your looks. We’re trying to help you. Part your hair down the middle, wear it straight, and wear a tight dress that pushes up your tits.”
Aubrey also spoke about her ex DJ Pauly D and the “abuse” she put up with from him.
“O’Day: And they make you think you’re crazy. We talked about this. My ex is way bigger than me and everybody loves him and he’s been painted as this golden boy and he’s got this great smile and he knows how to charm women. He walks into a room and motherfuckers are like, Oh my god, he’s the sweetest, kindest, that big smile, he’s so great! When behind closed doors, he’s like a completely different human being.
It gets so dark that I was shocked and I’m pretty dark. The amount of abuse and things that I felt—and I also want to be fair, I really loved him and had a lot of great times. It’s very hard to say both things as if you can’t have one without the other, but you can. It’s very hard when you’re strong, successful, or powerful or trying to make your mark, to come forward and say I’m weak.
I lost myself. I allowed myself to be abused. To admit that we were taken advantage of or we allowed people to do this to us. Or we wanted to be where we got so bad, that we dealt with it. We kept our mouths shut because you don’t get to where we’re at by mouthing off.”FayesVision/WENN.com
This interview is a good one, these ladies aren’t holding back. We only hope there are no legal ramifications for them…
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp0Ahe6nvxD/
[Photo Credit: Ruben Chamorro for Cosmo]
Read their Cosmo interview in full HERE.
Comments
Bossip Comment Policy
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.